It still hurts
by tah-crowley
Summary: Fic for the prompt: "I don't deserve to be loved" sent by my darling Kuns s2 Also this is part of Dick's recovery from Kuns and mine's (Psychatrist) Hospital AU. This one can stand alone, but it is in the same universe as a longer fic we are writing together, just a post-Hospital. This one is about Dick failing to find the other side of the path to full recovery - for now. But r


Crises always come to show how much it'll take, how much more than what he wanted it will take (for full recovery). They always show up when Dick thinks he can get over it all and move on. In the Hospital, he was told that crises and feeling like giving up were common occurrences, that he would get over them too - eventually - but it doesn't help much the sensation of hopelessness within him, when they hit, hard.

Everything had been just fine in the former couple of months. He had even wondered, hopefully, that maybe he would be able to go and live life like any other "normal" person, just like before it all happened - without asking for anything more than this. But maybe it was too easy to think like this, he had underestimated how much it took for him to get out of the hospital. How much it took for him to open up. And he was underestimating how much it would take for him to not feel like this anymore.

"I don't deserve to be loved!" Dick lets out as he shakes, sweating cold as he stares at the dark roof of the car as if he were losing sight, his eyes filling up with tears, his arms squeezing his still slender frame. It hasn't been much after he got released from the hospital and there he was; already having a crisis and crying, forgetting to take his medication for the second night and crying his lungs out.

Distantly, he knows that this isn't exactly all his fault, that it was expected from him to stop the medication when he felt better, that the path to recovery wasn't straight. But rationality doesn't help much when all he feels is shame and pain.

Obnoxiously enough, though, it even seems a perfect fitting moment for him to break down since nobody's around, and he can feel ashamed and depressed at peace, to look weak and helpless as he feels within himself. So much he feels, that he isn't able to realize that Lew - his best friend and a long time not seen friend - is passing by the car with a drugstore bag in his hand as he walked out of the shop.

"Dick?" Lew calls as he seems to notice Dick, his noticeable crying.

Dick catches that voice and quickly digs his head between his legs, trying to calm down his crying, to make it less loud. He isn't a coward, Dick has never been one to feel ashamed of himself at this point, but he has passed through so much, and he feels so bad. He doesn't want Lew to see him like this again, he doesn't want Lew to see him at all.

"Dick?' Nix's voice raises up and his pace seems to get quicker by the louder noises of his steps on the concrete ground from the sidewalk, coming closer and closer to where Dick was crouched, crying.

Dick starts crying even harder, his shoulders shaking as he can hear Lew's panting beside him.

"Go away..." Dick mutters against his knees covered with a pair of blue jeans, wetting them with a great amount of tears and saliva, pulling a hand to the opened window, trying to conceal his eyes, his face from Lew with his free hand too; although it was dark and night time for Lew to see him well from a distance, Dick still doesn't want to take chances.

"Dick, what the fuck?"

Lew grasps Dick's hand into his, and it makes him shiver and shake in panic. He tries to retreat but in a thread of desperation for comfort, he whimpers at the motion, squeezing Lew's hand tightly as tight as he can, trying to concentrate on that. He wants to stop crying, he wants to stop feeling like all he wants is crying and screaming.

"I'm not an unknown," Lew continues, "I'm your friend! I had been at the hospital. I know-I remember what happened to you, to all of us. I'm your friend, I won't turn my back on you!"

Dick bites his knee at the will to cry out. He doesn't want to disappoint Lew further. It had already been enough. He needs to calm down.

Dick's crying slowly diminishes as he rubs his thumb onto the softest spot of Lew's hand, just the part of skin close to his thumb, feeling suddenly a little light-headed. He missed Lew, he missed their conversations, Lew's smile, his hug, their exchanges, their kisses. But he doesn't want Lew to have to deal with him and what kept happening to him, that disease that came with the trauma for being sexually abused by someone he deemed his best friend when he was just too young to understand what was happening, but too old to not forget it through the years after.

"Dick..." Lew whispers, "Open the door."

Dick doesn't say anything for a minute, a very long minute. He wants to keep pushing Lew away. He's ashamed for Lew having to see him like this, all the time, out of nowhere, because Dick couldn't just deal with his trauma and move on. It was taking too long, he was taking too long.

But in the end, Dick nods, opening the door. He keeps his head between his legs, though, embracing his legs with his free arm. He feels like reaching for the little pride he still has there. He doesn't want to display his misery and weakness; his sickness on his face, on his eyes anymore than he wanted to let Lew witness it all.

"Dick," Lew says so softly and weakly that Dick looks up at him, his eyes filled with red stains, his cheeks trembling from the crying and the bad feelings: the fear, the shame, the disgust.

Lew spreads his arms, letting go of the bag on the ground and Dick finally leans in to hug him, without thinking much, in a desperate attempt to find comfort into Lew's arms, his best friend since he was hospitalized and became roommates with him.

"Dick..." Lew pats Dick's head, while Dick starts crying again, harder as before, shaking and slowly falling out of the car seat and on Lew's lap. "Jesus Christ, Dick, you had my number, you should have called." He sighs, still caressing Dick's hair while Dick slowly stops shaking as much, feeling even a little sleepy over Lew's shoulder.

"I-I-I didn't-didn't," he tries to speak, still shaking, still not facing Lew; his chin hooked on Lew's shoulder, on the warm and soft cotton of the hoodie Lew's wearing which gives him some kind of special comfort, like sleeping under warm blankets. He wants to stop crying, he wants to talk like a normal person. He bites his lower lip "I didn't want to... bo-bother you."

"Jesus Christ, Dick, what bother…!" Lew says, finding that completely unacceptable. "After everything, you should've known that there's nothing too ugly for us to deal with."

But Dick doesn't want to be another ugly, another problem. Stammering like a kid who lost their favorite plushy bear.

Lew pulls away, trying to sooth Dick to let go and speak to him by rubbing his thumb across Dick's wet cheek.

"You took care of me after I tried to... kill myself again, do you remember?" Lew asks, seriously. He falters on the realness of his experiences of self-harm and Dick knows how hard is it for Lew to talk about it; he knows Lew is only talking about it to make a point to Dick and it hurts to lead him to do so.

They had passed through so much.

Dick looks up at him:

"You're my friend," which makes Dick smile a little, for a frame of second, because that is exactly why he should have talked to Lew, because they were friends, not a bother - although it is still hard to make Dick feel like he should, because Lew didn't need more problems than he already had; Dick couldn't be another trouble to him, he didn't want to.

"Exactly," Lew says, "Makes no sense for you to hide from me."

Dick looks down, one hand fidgeting with another, trying to take some guts to talk about what made him feel like that.

"I still have those violent thoughts..." he says, finally, breathing deeply and sighing, feeling a bit of the weight on his shoulders shifting.

"I know," Lew says, probably aware that their mental illnesses wouldn't go away out of nowhere just because they wanted them so much to do so.

"I don't like to..." Dick starts but doesn't finish, he shakes his head instead. He hates to talk about the violent thoughts he has, these thoughts that are directed to the only people that matter to him, and that makes him feel sick and dirty to think about. As if he were ungrateful and something like a psychopath, a stained monster.

"I know," Lew repeats, nodding, "I know, Dick. Shit, did you think I would forget all about you and the things you and I'd have passed through in the hospital?"

"I wish you did..."

Lew shakes his head, but he gets up as Dick's mom shows up and looks at them both with an interrogative expression. On another hand, Dick has a bit of a hard time to move away and put himself together, because he was indeed feeling himself better and more at ease on his friend's embrace, but also weakened and sore inside out now that he is up on his feet.

"Le-Lewis?" Edith asks, smiling for seeing such a familiar face, although the situation was odd and for that, she frowns a little. "What are you boys doing?"

Dick looks away, disentangling himself from Lew, coming to the car seat again as best as he can, supporting himself on the seat by his shaking hands.

"I," he looks far away, "I was having a bad moment," he looks down the road on the south side, trying not to stare back at his mom.

He can hear his mom sighing, tired, bringing him his bag of medication without looking at him; trying to let Dick have his moment.

"Does Lew want to come over?" she asks without looking back at Dick, probably too aware that Dick doesn't like to be looked at when he is feeling like that, his face painted with rouge by the crying.

Dick can feel Lew's look at him but he doesn't look back, he is scared and ashamed to ask when he has tried to hide this whole time.

"Sure, Mrs. Winters."

Dick's heart skips a beat, feeling excitement running through his body. He has missed Lew so much, and even if he should he has barely any face to push Lew away now, to say he shouldn't do it - when Dick actually wants it, wants it with all his heart. He needs Lew too, he needs all that Lew means to him and he also can't help embracing Lew's decision to come to their place to be with him more, because he has always loved the other boy.

"Good," Edith says, nodding, "Dick, do you want to go to the back seat?"

Dick rolls his eyes, smiling a bit as he walks out the door, trying to ignore and avoid the other two's eyes and then he opens the backseat door.

"Come in," he says, gingerly.

"Oh, what a gentleman," Nix smirks, sliding across the seat to sit on the other side.

Dick shakes his head a bit amused and sits beside Lew, eventually leaning his head on Lew's shoulders.

"I missed you, you know?" Lew says, looking down at Dick who is still shaking a bit but his breath seems to be slower. He's tired and sleepy now, he feels kind of empty in a good way.

Dick looks up, as the car is set to go off and he smiles:

"Me too."


End file.
